In Case You Didn't Already Hear

This is no doubt the biggest publishing news of the day, if not the entire week:

Microsoft Corp. is investing at least $605 million in Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook digital-book business, as the software giant pushes deeper into the e-books business and props up a rival to the iPad and Amazon's Kindle.

Microsoft will have a 17.6% stake in a new subsidiary for the Nook and Barne's college-text businesses in a transaction that values them at $1.7 billion, the companies said. That compares with Barnes & Noble's current market capitalization of about $791 million and could fuel the argument of some analysts and investors that the digital business should be separated from the retail division.

Shares of Barnes & Noble, which has struggled with a slide in traditional book sales and heavy investments in its Nook digital business, surged 68% on the news.

As those shares should. After all, this is MAJOR news. Since January Barnes & Noble has talked about possibly doing a spinoff of the NOOK. Just last week there were rumors circulating around that Facebook might (or should) be the one to make the purchase. After all, they recently threw down some massive dough to purchase a photo app that I don't use and have no interest in using.

Anyway, is this Microsoft/Barnes & Noble news exciting? Yes, very much so. Though, to be honest, I don't care much for either company. Growing up all I used was Microsoft, but in the past few years I've become a big Apple fan. I have an iMac, an iPad, an iPhone, ietc. As for a dedicated ereader, I love my basic $79 Kindle. I can't remember the last time I was in a Barnes & Noble, and I really have no interest in any of the NOOK devices, though the most recent one -- the glow in the dark eink -- looks pretty cool. So as a consumer, this news today doesn't really affect me much ... except, in a way, it does.

Because the more competition, the better.

If a powerhouse like Microsoft is teaming up with Barnes & Noble, it gives Amazon more reason to keep their prices low -- and, more importantly, it gives them more reason to continue to offer writers such as myself that 70% royalty ... just as it gives B&N the same reason to keep up their 65% royalty.

See -- competition is great for everyone involved.

Then again, some companies feel the need to flex their muscle, which ends up hurting pretty much everyone involved.

Oh well, such is life.

In Which I Begin Reading From The Inner Circle

So in addition to playing around with podcasting, I thought it would a fun idea to start giving you a sneak peek of The Inner Circle, book two of the Man of Wax trilogy. Originally I’d planned to release the novel this month, but it’s much longer and more complex than Man of Wax, and while I could rush through it, I want to make sure it’s the very best it can be before it’s published. So it’s looking like it will be sometime this summer, probably June, July at the very latest. In the mean time, though, every Friday I plan to present a new chapter for your enjoyment until whenever the book is finally released. For those of you not familiar with Man of Wax, it’s probably best you do yourself a favor and buy the book. I may be biased, but I think it’s pretty good. For those of you who are familiar with Man of Wax and are eagerly looking forward to The Inner Circle, I want to thank you for your support. Also, if you haven’t already, I’d be grateful if you took a couple of minutes and helped spread the word, either by leaving a review at places like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Goodreads, or just mentioning it on Facebook and Twitter (or, you know, both). If I’ve learned anything in the past year, it’s that reader word of mouth is the best way for other readers to find new books.

Now, regarding The Inner Circle, I don’t want to give too much away of the plot just yet, but I will tell you that the book opens two years after the events of Man of Wax. Ben has yet to find his family, and has in fact become convinced that he’ll never find them, and has therefore become a solider in Carver’s army against Caesar and the Inner Circle. What I’m going to read now is a sort of prologue and the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

The Inner Circle Chapter 1

P.S. Allergies attacked me out of nowhere today, so my voice may be more nasally than usual. I hope this changes for next week.

Speaking of Reader Reviews

Earlier this week I talked about what I'm calling the Reader Blurb (I literally talked about it -- with my own voice!), and now here there's this:

Would you buy a book if it was like other books you bought and you knew others who bought what you liked to buy bought that book, too?

The answer to that convoluted question is one of the open secrets of Amazon’s success in the e-tail business: Once you’ve sold products to consumers at low prices and shipped them at little cost, suggest they buy another product – but not just any product, a product selected just for them by a complicated algorithm based on what they’ve searched, bought and otherwise shown interest in.

Consumers love it.

Of course, these consumers are fairly skeptical about some things, which they very well should be:

Consumers aren’t so much worried about whether Amazon rigs its own system; they’re worried about a different kind of foul play – by authors.

“I used to trust book recommendations until I saw how authors and self-help gurus were using the ratings system to boost their sales,” said Nicole Guillaume, 32, the owner of a dog-training company in Corona, Calif.

According to Guillaume, a well-known self-help expert emailed her asking for “help” on Amazon in the form of a book review on the day her book came out. Hundreds of people immediately responded with five-star reviews, despite the unlikelihood of them actually owning the book since it just came out that day. A few weeks later, another author tried the same thing with Guillaume and had similar, positive results.

“I am disgusted with such ploys,” said Guillaume. “I understand that these experts and authors want to increase their sales, but the rating system was created so that real people could create real reviews. Having people create reviews of books they’ve never read totally defeats the purpose.”

This is, of course, a very serious problem. So what can we do about it? Who knows. As a writer, I obviously would like as many positive reviews as possible. I even encourage readers to leave reviews -- honest reviews. If they really liked the book, great. If they didn't, well, hopefully they'll like the next one. Many readers, I think, understand the importance of reviews, so if they don't care for a particular book, they just won't review it.

You have to take the book reviews “with a grain of salt,” said Jay Buerck, 29, from St. Louis and the chief operating officer for an online reputation management company.

“If the book only has a few reviews and all of the reviews are five stars and overly positive testimonials about how great the book is, I tend to discount the reviews,” he said.

A friend of mine has said he would actually prefer to get four-star reviews over five-star reviews, and I think that makes sense. I'm a cynical person by nature, so if I stumble across a book with a ton of five-star reviews, a red flag immediately shoots up (note: that doesn't mean I would prefer four-star reviews over five-star reviews, because obviously I would prefer the five-star, but you see what I mean, right?).

Again, reader reviews are great for helping potential readers decide whether or not to check out the book, but they also play a major role in Amazon's algorithm. It could be completely coincidental, but in the past few days, since that one-star review, I've seen my sales start to slip for my novella Spooky Nook. Again, it could be coincidental, but I don't think so. I also don't think readers are totally turned away by that one-star review. Instead, potential readers aren't being recommended the book as much as before that review entered the system and changed the algorithm. Scary thought, huh? Well, yes and no. The thing is, there's really nothing you can do about it. You can't predict sales. Even without that one-star review, sales might eventually start slipping. After all, what goes up must come down. It's completely out of my control. The only thing I can do is work hard on the next book. That, my friends, is very much in my control.

*  *  *

Now, on a completely different note, I'm including this YouTube clip. It's pretty longish but worth watching (or at least listening to). While a large number of teachers are underpaid and overworked and still do a great job, there are others who are completely disgusting in how they deal with students -- especially those students with special needs. So check out the video. Just be warned, it will piss you off.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfkscHt96R0]

The Reader Blurb

I'm doing something different on the blog today. Dabbling my toes in the podcast waters, if you will. So if you're brave, click and listen to me ramble for about ten minutes. I talk about VERY IMPORTANT STUFF. [audio http://www.robertswartwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/The-Reader-Blurb.mp3]

These two images will come in handy ...

From The Calling:

From 77 Shadow Street:

Let me know what you think ...

I Can Finally Now Add www.briankeene.com To My CV

Ever since I was a little boy, my lifelong dream was to write a guest blog post for Brian Keene. And, well, that day has finally arrived, which means it's time I can retire from all this writing nonsense. Or ... on second thought, I guess I might as well keep doing this writing nonsense after all, as it seems to be going well.

Many thanks to Brian for giving me a platform to ramble about ebooks and such. Regular readers of this blog probably won't find anything new there, but go check it out anyway. There are obviously many more things you can do in regards to ebooks -- many of which I talked about this weekend at the GSHW meeting, in fact -- but these are the important basics.

By the way, I somehow ended up with an extra copy of Needle, so if you're interested in winning a free copy, check out the details here. But hurry -- the deadline is midnight, EST.